Tag: Intrepid Stories

It has long been the goal of the artist, regardless of the chosen form, to make a full-time living as an artist. Authors want to write; painters want to paint; musicians want to sing…and none of them want to do anything else.

When they begin, artists have a love of their art that rivals the deepest of romances, but as they confront the realities of selling their work –– of needing to impress an audience –– they begin to sacrifice their true artistic sensibilities in favor of what consumers will purchase. This is as terrible for the artist as it is for their art.

While there is something to be said for maintaining ownership of a creation, in case anyone else wants to use it for their work and thus compensate the original creator for their contribution, the original artist should not be concerned with selling that original work to the marketplace –– not if they want to express their true self in the process. It is my belief that self-expression takes a back seat to consumer interest when the goal is remuneration.

So what is an aspiring artist to do?

In older times, an artist would gain the interest of a wealthy patron to fund their work in exchange for the artist doing something of benefit for the patron –– build a cathedral, paint a mural, name a newly discovered moon after the patron’s children, etc. While lucrative for many artists, such relationships were also toxic, as the patron could make demands on the artist and their work.

That said, I still believe that the patron method is the strongest way for an artist to make a living while practicing their art. There is a compromise made between the desires of the artist and their patron, but with the right patron the artist has the freedom to express themselves fully –– some patrons just want to be “patrons of the arts” –– and modern technology provides a vehicle that can find numerous such patrons.

Crowdfunding business models allow for consumers of art and story to fund the projects they believe in and become patrons of artists and storytellers they admire en masse. On the surface, this looks like it establishes another patron-artist relationship, but I maintain that it doesn’t.

In ancient times, if an artist or their work offended their patron enough to sever the relationship, the artist was left without funding. Crowdfunding, however, creates an environment that favors the artist: they have multiple patrons, sometimes numbering in the thousands. If a work or an artist offends a patron, there are others to shore up the loss. Even if a large number of patrons leave, there are always going to be those who still admire the artist, if for no other reason than their courage to truthfully express themselves.

Previously, even if the masses enjoyed the work of an artist, without a rich patron the artist could not produce their works any longer. But with the low cost of becoming a patron of modern artists (sometimes as low as a dollar), the masses can easily support an artist they admire.

I so fervently believe in this concept that I will no longer charge for my creative works. I will open up a vehicle for those who are interested in my work to help me pay my bills so that I can have more time to create, but my work will no longer be for sale, which means it will no longer be controlled by what I perceive others may think –– I’m often wrong about that anyway.

My art is now for the masses to enjoy. I will trust in the ever-improving quality of my work to maintain a minimum number of patrons, or average amount per patron, to support me while I provide the world with the truest stories and shared storytelling experiences that I can.

Regarding my previous work: Because of pre-existing crowdfunding campaigns, and my agreements to backers and collaborators alike, Jadepunk, Shadowcraft, and Age of Anarchy will remain for sale on DriveThruRPG.com.

I began reading Star Wars: Ahsoka last night. I’m 70 or so pages in and it’s great so far. And by “great” I mean that, if it keeps the quality up through the rest of the book, it will earn a place on my shelf next to my all-time favorite series: The Ranger’s Apprentice (John Flanagan). What struck me about Ahsoka wasn’t all of the Jedi awesomeness (there’s plenty of that, too), but the authenticity, especially in regards to how Ahsoka interprets the world around her.

One statement, in particular, stuck with me. While she was thinking about becoming a droid mechanic on this new planet, her thoughts were of how she wasn’t as good a mechanic as Anakin. No, she was “good enough” but not “prodigious.” And just being good enough, she found, was what most beings in the galaxy (outside of the Jedi) were at their professions. It took her some getting used to in every aspect of her life outside of The Jedi Order.

This concept, “good enough,” meshes quite well with my personal mandate to not let perfect become the enemy of great. She wasn’t doing that. In fact, she was open with her first customer about not knowing how to fix it, but trying to do her best. What a great lesson in humility. And even better, on the part of the customer, what a great lesson in not expecting other people to be perfect (I’m looking at you, person who yells at your barista to “get it right!”).

Every now and then, you read something in a book that speaks to your soul, that tells you it’s okay to not be okay. “Just do you and everything will work out,” this text seems to say to me. I dig that!

There are so many quality thoughts in this book. I’ve never read any of the author’s other works, but I’m keen to if this quality keeps up.

Again, major disclaimer, I have not finished the book (I haven’t even gotten to the inciting incident yet), but I’m (greatly) enjoying what I’ve read so far.

For those of you who aren’t caught up, I recently received a letter from Kausao City’s governor’s office describing how the Kausao City Post Office is being used to contact rebel sympathizers outside of the hegemony. After more than a week of searching for information regarding the seized letters mentioned in that correspondence, I received another letter.

Here it is:

Jianghu Sympathizer,

I’ll refrain from using names for mutual protection. In fact, it may be too dangerous to contact you at all. I hope our desperation has not compromised you.

Jonica…A contact in the Four Winds Trading Company has alerted us to a plot to kill the Kaiyumi crown princess during her first visit to Kausao City, and frame a prominent Jianghu society in the process. We already have a tough time convincing recruits that we’re a legitimate rebellion – we’re losing the propaganda war. If the princess, a known critic of the Council of Nine, were to fall, seemingly by our hand, the Jianghu may be too discredited to carry on.

One of our number – again, no names – has informed us that you have contacts within the Empire. It is our hope that you can impress upon them how dangerous it is to allow the FWTC to remain sovereign outside of the Empire. The treaty that created the Kausao City hegemony dictates the corporation can only be regulated by the Aerish government.

We have already sent word to the princess, and are praying to Ehal that it arrives before her retinue departs. If you can lean on your government and keep the FWTC too busy to become embroiled in such distant plots, you could save a lot of lives.

With gratitude,

The Swift Songbird Society

I’m not sure who they think I know, or how one voice could make a difference, but I’ll do my best. Though picket signs outside the Capitol might be too much.

Then again, I do know someone who applied for a government job last year, an assistant to some middle manager somewhere. I wonder if he got the job. I’ll check.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to post here and keep a record of my findings. And, again, here’s the original letter – for your files.

The Jianghu rebellion is the centerpiece of the Jadepunk roleplaying game.

I’ve always found trying to play a roleplaying game solo to be of great interest (maybe because my best friend is my dog), but not a great exercise. Games just don’t support the format. But maybe they could? Maybe the old “choose your own adventure” stories hold a key here?

If you’ve read them, you’ve likely had a similar rush to the one you get when you the GM tells you how terrible your decision turned out for you. If that isn’t what we’re looking for in solo RPGs, I don’t know what is.

Even video games are reinvigorating the “choose your own adventure” format; just look at the success of TellTale Games’ lineup of (great) “choose your own” games.

Customization is the Key

I haven’t played a TellTale game since the first Walking Dead series they released (not for lack of want, let me tell you), but one thing I noticed in that first game, and especially the aforementioned “choose your own” books from the 80’s, is the lack of character customization. And for a tabletop roleplaying game, customization is everything!

My Pitch…

A solo game where you create a character and”play” through a series of adventures, “leveling up” certain skills along the way, as well as gaining new items to use (TellTale uses some of these concepts, but I’m going back to tabletop/fiction stuff now). And those items can have big repercussions for future decisions – “progress through <option A> only if you possess <device option B from the last chapter>.”

That could be a fun exercise for a small DTRPG release next year (Siri, put it on the To Do list), but this is a digital age, we need…multiplayer solo gaming (that’s how you all play your MMOs anyway, amiright?). So we include a posting template on a web page that lets you plug in your choices. Then out comes your personalized story, to share with all of your friends on social media.

Did you see my first Vlog post? It’s a follow up on the post I made here last week about letting perfect be the enemy of great. But I said something in it that I felt deserved its own post: “great things have flaws, and perfect things don’t exist.” And that’s so true. How many… Continue reading Flaws are Great and First Vlog Episode

New Years is upon us, and that means resolutions. Most years, I wait until after Christmas to review the previous year and consider the trajectory of the next, but last night I found a six-year-old notebook. What was in it? Goals. But, more than that, goals that I have not yet achieved, still pursue, and shouldn’t take more than a season to reach. Talk about a lack of discipline.

And can you believe that the first line of the notebook said this:

Seriously!

Now, what was written after that was actually pretty correct: …you just have to do it. Discipline is built through action. The more you do something, the more disciplined you’ll become in keeping with the habit. The only secret to success in the pursuit of discipline is progressive overload (that’s a weightlifting term for starting small and slowly increasing the load until you are achieving epic lifts).

I could lie and say I didn’t know that six years ago, but starting small isn’t sexy enough; screw Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes, I want to be Captain America today! So, naturally, this goal was something that didn’t get achieved…

I mean, it’s an ambitious (and ambiguous) goal, but it’s not like I didn’t spend most of my life in just that condition. I knew how to get back to it. Patience and discipline, neither of which I had.

One goal I did pursue, in fits and starts, is…

But the sustained effort required to make a living with my writing was not there. And in the last two years, especially, it’s been all over the place.

So what am I going to do about it in 2017?

I’m going to be patient; I’m going to be disciplined. I’m going to start small (yes, those are 5 lb. weights on the literary bar), and I’m going to be patient and keep thinking about the long game.

My goals for 2017 are to: get my business back on track (getting Jadepunk, Shadowcraft, and PME getting regular launch dates and my marketing infrastructure established), publish an Intrepid Story every quarter, hit my fitness and martial arts goals (which I won’t post here, because boring to read about if you’re not into that), and document my progress (if I’m successful, then a record of how I did it could be beneficial to others in the future).

Some of those goals require funding that I don’t currently have (but that I do have lined up in January), others require help that I need to procure, but most of them require that I get off my ass and start, but start small.

Intrepid City 0:2 TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN By Ryan M. Danks The XS–9 rocketed out of Earth’s atmosphere. Propelled by prototype plasma engines, the experimental air/space hybrid plane was the pride of Valiant Industries’ R&D department, which they claim is light years ahead of their competitors. Colonel Cole Stewart leaned into the cockpit and watched… Continue reading Intrepid Stories: Too Close to the Sun